I’d like every liberal who has carped about the president’s approach to the debt ceiling negotiations to pause now and consider the fact that the Republicans have now revealed their bottom line. They made an offer. Their offer is nothing. We get nothing. Not one thing that we want. Nada. And that has always been their position. This was their position from the very beginning. Absolutely nothing, not bad polls, not the advice of bankers or the Chamber of Commerce or conservative economists, or the disapproval of their biggest donors, nor even ridiculous concessions, nor even offering everything they ostensibly want could change their bottom line. The president gets nothing and we get nothing.
Now, this thing is still not over, and the president is going to speak to the nation at 9pm tonight. I expect he will be extremely pissed off. I also expect the Republicans not to give a shit. They think he’s bluffing. I think he’s not bluffing. But my point for the purposes of this thread is the following. Since there was never any way to win any concessions, wasn’t the game here to make sure people see you as having been reasonable? And the other side as the economic terrorists that they are?
Was there some other objective? For example, should he have spent his time looking equally unwilling to compromise? Should he have made demands that people thought were equally unrealistic and unfair? Should he have made a strong case for Democratic values and Keynesian economics only to have his inability to move the Republicans highlighted even more?
It seems to me that this wasn’t a game about outcomes. The outcome was pretty well known in advance: the Republicans would refuse to raise the debt ceiling if it meant making a single concession on anything. Given that, the whole exercise was about political perceptions.
I don’t understand why this isn’t better understood.
Perceptions. Yep, the GOP has turned down 5 debt reduction plans. The plans reduced the debt 1.2 to 4 trillion dollars and walked away every time. Now that’s a perception I can believe in.
To be fair Booman – if the strategy you’ve outlined above is actually what’s going on and an intentional strategy, it’s a strategy that’s completely dependent on Obama being viewed as an honest broker who really and truly believes that he can come to a compromise with Republicans and is willing to bend over backwards to give them almost everything they want within reason – and even somethings that are unreasonable.
So either he really and truly believes that he can come to a compromise with Republicans by giving them what they want or he needs to look like he really and truly believes it. Either way it looks exactly the same to an outside viewer – so if that’s what’s going on you can’t blame people for being taken in by it. And if it’s not what’s going on and he has been being honest then you can’t blame people for being mad about what he’s willing to give up.
And, honestly, if this is all a big trick on his part then part of the maneuvering would be to make sure that folks to his left were spitting-mad angry to make sure that Independents were seeing that he was adequately pissing off his left flank. So making people on the left angry would be a feature of this maneuver, not a side-effect.
My gut feeling? It’s both — if Obama could get the grand bargain and settle some thorny long-term problems that Congress is clearly unable and unwilling to tackle, then he’d be happy, even though he knows the price would be steep. But, understanding Congress as he does, he knows the odds of that are vanishingly small, so he must and will maneuver to contain the damage and achieve what good there is to be gotten in this looming disaster, both in the immediate crisis and down the road electorally.
Well, THAT’s my thought process, too, and it’s also why I get pissed off. I don’t know where Obama will draw a line. That’s what pisses us off, that’s what worries us, and it’s why we’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off.
If a deal were there, he’d take it, and take extreme heat from the base. He also knows he can’t get a deal. But, how much of what he showed to them was good-faith “This is what I’d actually be willing to give up if you accepted revenues” and how much was “Lol! You guys must be really stupid to think I’d give up BLANK“
As I’ve said before, he never dogwhistles so the base has no way of knowing when a given stance is a trick or an honest stance.
In rope-a-dope, you don’t telegraph your punches.
It also serves your interests to let your supporters know you won’t betray them.
You are running around like a chicken with your head cut off because you are a yet to be employed student who has never had to navigate the politics of an office let alone government. You have yet to prove you can even govern your own life. Why don’t you and every other serial failure looking to this President to validate you or in your case someone who hasn’t had to step into the real world yet just stay in your damn lane as casual observers of this shit like the rest of us rather than playing (White) house?! Following politics and reading shit that other people report through leaks doesn’t make you an expert! When someone actually pays you to make consequential decisions about anything, which I’m willing to bet will NEVER happen, then maybe you can talk. Otherwise, keep running around frustratingly in circles to no end. Maybe you’ll run into a wall and knock your silly ass the hell out!
Ok, Britney Spears. I’ve learned the folly of my ways!
So you can’t talk unless somebody pays you to make decisions? Nothing to see here? Leave it to the “pros” who got us into this insane disaster and they will take care of us? Would these worthy opinonators include those who are paid for their opinions like Beck and Palin, or is it limited to those who have been elected, like Ryan and DeLay and Inhofe? The world humbly awaits your reply. May we expect it to be ex cathedra, or just a casual address from the high balcony?
Also, too, notice that Democratic politicians, staffers and people who’ve played the game before I was even alive are saying similar things — in many ways I’m far more forgiving because I don’t question his motives (“He just really hates Social Security and wants to gut it”).
She only picks on me because I’m younger than everyone else here, and am therefore an easy target.
And the fact that you continue to opine on politics after admitting support for Mike Gravel without apparent humiliation or contrition…
Mike Gravel is a left libertarian. I’m not stupid, I know he was going nowhere. I just said he was who represented my opinions best, not who I thought would win.
I supported Edwards and thank god he didn’t win. I don’t know how I could’ve been so bamboozled well into my thirties.
The order went for me:
2007: “Gravel has the best positions, but Hillary is probably going to win so I’ll just vote for her I guess.”
2008 after Obama’s MLK Day Speech: “Hmmm, I would rather him over Hillary, and he has a good shot. So I’ll vote for and support him.”
I never supported Edwards, not even remotely. Always seemed like a fake.
Almost all politicians up close seem like fakes. Some are some aren’t. It’s damn hard to tell. The exceptions include Carter for sure.
You know, it really doesn’t matter who you say you support online if that person never appears on your ballot. That problem with appearing on ballots is why most candidates go nowhere.
By the North Carolina primary, most of the other candidates had dropped out. My choice was between Hillary and Obama. I voted for Obama.
Mike Gravel got in to shape the discourse. And he succeeded. A lot of folks saw “Power to the people, give peace a chance” who did not know the contributions that Mike Gravel made to ending the war in Vietnam.
To give an analogy, what he did was like Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia reading into the Congressional Record the entire collection of Wikileaks cables. On the principle that the people need to know what their government is doing.
If seabe actually voted for Gravel in the primary, it’s not a problem. Millions of voters offset his vote.
The major hit against Gravel was that he was unelectable. In a primary, that is a self-fulfilling prophecy that every candidate likes to hang on all the other candidates. The real problem was that Gravel was not well-known and Gravel-McCain matchup would have been fighting the Vietnam War all over again.
My first votes were for Eugene McCarthy in the primary. Sat out the 1968 general. Yeah, the last 43 years have been my fault. And voted in the primary and general for George McGovern – in South Carolina. Did not vote at all in 1976 because of work trips. Jesse Jackson (in what is now Virginia Foxx country) in the primary and Mondale in the general in 1984. Gore in the primary and Dukakis in the general in 1988. Clinton in the primary and general in 1992. And the obvious choices thereafter.
I guess I don’t deserve to opine on politics either.
This is about the rudest comment I’ve read on this site.
nonynony, thanks for this thoughtful post.
My guess is that somewhere along the way, President Obama absorbed (directly or indirectly) some of Steve Covey’s teachings in “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, for example,
*Begin With The End In Mind
*Seek Win-Win
*Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood
Obama tends to make clear from the beginning what he wants to accomplish, without laying down too many specifics. He’s willing to negotiate away his preferences on specifics in exchange for accomplishing his overall goal (e.g., giving away the public option in order to secure enough votes to pass the ACA).
Among the (largely) successful negotiations of his administration to date are:
*cutting a deal with Collins, Snowe & Specter to pass the Recovery Act in the first month of his administration;
*uniting Senate Democrats to pass the ACA (in part by making clear to the public how bad Republicans looked trying to block it);
*ending DADT (with the support of the Pentagon);
*beginning the withdrawal from Afghanistan (by how he handled the “surge” that Petraeus, et al, wanted).
I think Obama does see himself as an honest broker/negotiator. I think he sees himself as someone who is good at coming to compromises with his opponents, and is willing to concede to them everything they want within reason—and even some things that are unreasonable.
I think he does all that because he sees himself as making compromises in the service of advancing progressive goals. And that he thinks an imperfect ACA (for example) will be like the imperfect Social Security Act that FDR signed and the imperfect Medicare law that LBJ signed.
Better to move forward at a slower pace than one might want, than to remain stuck in one’s current position—with the risk of being forced backwards at some future time.
Just my thoughts, but it helps explain (at least to me) many of Obama’s actions.
I have my disappointments with Obama, but respect him too much to imagine he gets pointers from airhead windbags like Covey.
I’ll give Obama credit for many things. But we haven’t begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. We’ll have almost twice as many troops in Afghanistan after the planned drawdown than we ever did while Bush was president.
Exactly. It’s hard to pull off a bluff if you’re constantly winking at your sidekicks to let them know it’s a bluff. So even if he is bluffing, he has to make it look real. To everybody.
Is he bluffing or is he not? Is he for real or is he not? I can’t tell. And that’s a good thing, because if I can tell, then so can Boehner and Cantor and McConnell. And either way, he is the president, so we all get wait until he decides to show his hand.
We’re about to go through a hell the likes of which nobody has experienced since the great depression. All of the bitter arguments about progressive fealty are about to be rendered moot in the face of right-wing intransigence. I hope everyone is ready to face being up a creek without unemployment insurance, social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps or a paddle. Default here we come. Gawd help us.
I don’t think we’re going to get default, and I think Obama will do his best to protect the most vulnerable, but, yes, everything else is up for grabs, and whatever he and his team have come up with to keep us from defaulting will almost certainly be very unpleasant.
We are not going to get default, if by that you mean that the holders of T-bills won’t get paid their interest and the principle on notes coming due is not repaid. That is what the 14th amendment forbids.
So how much will be needed to cover stuff for August and September? And where to get those savings? The answer is mostly through deferrals of payments. Vendors normally don’t squawk for 90 days as long as they know that they will be paid. The news media is focusing on deferral of Social Security payments and deferral of military pay because those are single large sums. But it would be foolish to assume that Barack Obama would hit those payments just because it’s convenient. There is a lot of little stuff that if done altogether could be enough deferrals to make it through two months.
Unemployment insurance payments come from states, with the federal government backfilling the federal share of that money. Unless a state suspends unemployment insurance payments, they will likely go out.
The crunch comes on October 1, the first day of the new fiscal year. What appropriations bills have been passed already? Any? What will the politics of having a continuing resolution to authorize federal spending look like. Are Republicans just going to leave the military without funding?
This is a political crisis, not a fiscal one. The question is what will it take to fix that crisis. Will what the press will call “default” shake up Republican constituents enough that they will call their party to account. Or will there be more serious political crises ahead.
My hope (without evidence) is that we might lance the political boil on the ass of the body politic with this crisis. That folks who have been living in a Randian illusion progagated by billions of dollars in conservative media propaganda might wise up.
If that does not occur, then as you say, Gawd help us.
I tend to agree with you on this. And most investors in US bonds are going to hold them because they know this is political and not a fiscal emergency.
Where I see a potential problem is if anyone downgrades our bond rating. Many trillions in Treasuries are held by “safe” bond funds for people’s retirement, etc and by their charter are only allowed to hold AAA-rated bonds, or they need to hold a certain percentage of them to hedge the rest of the fund’s portfolio. If Treasuries are downgraded, we could see trillions of dollars in redemptions and sales that we won’t be able to cover. Then panic selling…
Hopefully the Fed could find a way to come to the rescue and buy them all with money they create from thin air. Who knows. But that would have consequences for the value of the dollar, which would then effect something else, and so on and so on and so on until we find our economy and those of how many other countries destabilized (even if only temporary) over a political pissing match.
None of this will likely happen but is it worth the gamble for a game of perceptions?
High stakes poker.
It wasn’t understood or if understood acknowledged because it doesn’t fit the narrative of Obama as weak, sellout, Wall Street lackey, betrayer of progressives, Caver-in-Chief, hippie puncher, under-bus-thrower, et bloody cetera ad bloody nauseam.
What has struck me about the PL ravings on this whole debt ceiling brouhaha is that their two primary lines of attack — (a) Obama sucks as a negotiator and always gives away too much, he ought to be tougher and get way more! and (b) It’s impossible to negotiate with terrorists who don’t give a fuck and won’t give an inch! — are entirely contradictory, logically inconsistent. So, unless one persists in perceiving the President as the caricature I outline in the first paragraph, then manifestly he is using negotiations as a tool to achieve as close to his desired outcome as possible given the constraints within which he must work.
You and others write as if some great victory has crushed any possible doubts about Obama. Maybe that will prove to be the case, but I sure don’t see it a a present reality. All I see is that he didn’t get anything he asked for or get treated as any more than a nonentity by the Republicans.
So what am I missing?
One presumes that Obama had a good sense all along–well, at least since June–that a deal was highly unlikely but that he was going to give it a try, not just for the politics of persuading the independents but because I think he thought it would be better for the country to have even a bad deal than no deal.
On the other hand, he has been fairly calm about the larger implications of it all, which suggests to me that he has a plan B firmly in place and has had for awhile (and I must say I’m astonished that nothing about it has been leaked). For whatever reason, the markets seem to believe that he has this in hand as well. Well, I’m looking forward to hearing what the President has to say tonight.
Well when is the last time Obama willing relied on anyone but himself?
You can’t go avoiding default by an entity as large as the government by yourself. And Obama is not the kind of person who would have likely gone forward without at least the outline of a contingency plan in place. So you have to presume he has had a team working out the details.
I would expect that every little tiny workgroup of every agency of the entire federal government has been creating a contingency plan for “default”. A memo outlining the possible implications of this fight might have been sufficient to get management teams looking for ways of survival.
And I suspect that the President’s news conference Friday cleared the way for OMB to begin coordinating these contingency plans into a more strategic plan.
Also, the President himself said that Timothy Geithner had been exploring alternative responses. That most likely includes contacting large creditor institutions, foreign governments, letting them know what is going on. And conferring with the Fed and large government trust funds as to what short-term mitigating actions could be taken.
Why should Obama rely on Congress or the base with the WH strategy?
How many times over the last 3 years, have “un-named” aides, Senatorial and House aides leaked stories to the press about this meeting or that meeting. Aside from Pelosi, Reid, Plouffe, et the inner circle, how many “leaks” do you hear from these guys?
As for the base, it seems to me that every supposed leader of the “online” base has their own agenda. How many times did the WH have a “strategy” session or teleconference with some big name bloggers without the big named bloggers or someone representative of them afterward blabbing about what they were told. They can’t keep their mouths shuts on what was discussed (aside from BooMan, who, IMHO, has been very good at trying to at the very least, keep as much of actual “strategy” close to the breast, while still giving as much information and analysis as he can). So many of the so-called base leaders are too busy trying to make headlines or being on TV, and are too married to their “visible” ideology to give a shit about strategy. Everyone of them, IMHO, seem to want to be the headline or want to be the “king-maker” or want to be the most “influential”.
I’m sorry, I wouldn’t tell them anything either.
I wouldn’t tell them either. I’m more expressing admiration for the administration’s ability to keep the contingency plans under wrap. Washington usually leaks like sieve.
Well, not to keep bringing up a tired example, but I think the killing of Bin Laden has demonstrated that the Obama Administration is quite capable of keeping a secret.
not a tired example at all, a very current and apt example.
You’ve described the situation aptly, and this has the potential to be the most important speech in his Presidency.
He can point out that this moment is happening because GOP is choosing to hold America’s economy hostage — that 7 times the GOP voted happily to raise the debt ceiling under Bush and that this is routine.
He can point out that during months of negotiations the GOP has not only not offered any concession, they’ve actually made their positions more extreme.
He can point to the types of cuts they want to make — and the impact to working families.
And he can even try to restore the Democrat’s reputation as defenders of SS and Medicare by somehow explaining his willingness to put those on the chopping block.
Yes, he can decide this is the turning point — or he can continue what he’s been doing.
It still seems a couple of days early to be giving the turning point speech, because if you give that speech you almost have to outline what your plans are after 2 August. I would think he wants to keep those under wraps as long as possible so they can’t be politically derailed before the crisis is here to give him cover. Because he’s going to have to make some really horrible choices.
I think there a these things going on:
The President wants to raise the profile of the Reid proposal with the American people and point out that the Boehner response was a disagreement over extending the debt ceiling until after the 2012 election. That sets up the next round of the “four corners” game.
The markets today weren’t that bad considering Boehner’s massive failure to deal with reality. But there is need right now for the President to put on his constitutional lawyer hat and say that the Constitution prohibits him from presiding over a default. That whatever happens the good faith and credit of the American people will remain just that.
It then would be wise to outline the problem that the administration would have to solve and the sorts of decisions they would have to consider. The American people don’t really have an idea of what “default” in the media term being used means.
Finally, he would be wise to point out that we will be going through a threat of a total shutdown on October 1 if Congress doesn’t either pass the appropriations bills or a continuing resolution to keep the government operating.
And then some words about the optimistic spirit of the American people and how we can come through this crisis…
Just my WAG.
You are right. He’s not going to outline what the contingency plan is until the contingency is actually real. But hinting at specifically what sorts of choices will have to be made might be a part of the speech.
Yes, he can point that out. If he does he’ll be on his way to a political triumph. What are the odds that he will? We’ll find out tonight or pretty soon, I hope.
The longer this drags on the deeper and broader grows universal disgust and contempt for the government — which always serves the neo-fasist/GOP agenda. It will take real breakthrough words and actions to overcome that natural tendency.
Why isn’t this better understood?
Let me tell you the story of the presidential candidate who campaigned on health care reform. He kept using the term public option, until everyone had the perception (your word) that that was what he wanted. he said so several times. He became president!
Then, after taking single payer off the table, it turned out that he’d made a secret deal with the hospitals and insurance companies, assuring them that perceptions to the contrary, there would NEVER be a public option.
There were other examples we learned about, where perceptions didn’t match reality: the war on whistleblowers, for example. Civil liberties and restoring the rule of law. Bailing out banks, but not homeowners.
So if you want to know why it’s not better understood why it’s an exercise in political perceptions, it’s that a lot of us have been burned already. fool me once…
You have Max Baucus, whose health care staff person is a former VP at Wellpoint, as chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
You have Kent Conrad, who has lusted for a Deficit Commission for years, as the chair of the Senate Budget Committee.
You have any number of Democratic Senators and House members who are looking out for the interests of the pharmaceutical industry (Hagan, Menendez,Bayh), the hospital industry, the medical specialists, the hospital supply industry, and the medical profession. Check the donations list.
And you still think that a two-year US Senator just become President is going to have them follow his agenda just because he’s President?
Single-payer never was more than a pander for anyone in Congress. No doubt including Dennis Kucinich.
The industry toadies in Congress more or less assured that the President would have to deal with the industry associations in order to get their votes (remember we are talking about the Democrats here).
The option to pursue reconciliation was put into place early on. It is highly likely that Kent Conrad extorted the President’s support for the Deficit Commission as the price for allowing reconciliation. And when the time for reconciliation came, was part of the group intent of killing the public opion (BC/BS pretty much has a monopoly in ND). (Also, ask yourself why Byron Dorgan retired.)
A President is not a dictator. Read a history of the relationship between FDR and his Congress and LBJ and his. George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan appeared to have dictatorial control over their Congresses when all they were doing was reading the script.
Political promises rarely match reality even when they are sincere statements of direction.
So I guess we will all now tune in at 9ET to hear the unilateral declaration of surrender.;-)
Don’t forget that the President hired two of the biggest corporate whores(Rahmbo & Daley) to be CoS. So he’s not blameless. If you think it was just a problem of the Senate, why has the President gotten everything he really, really wanted while Pelosi was Speaker?
that Rahmbo Daely line is total f-ing nonsense. They don’t get to decide, write or vote on policy.
I don’t even understand this Pelosi argument of yours. SHE HAD A LIBERAL MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE! That’s why she was able to get those bills passed. SHE HAD A LIBERAL MAJORITY. FFS!
You have a point about those appointments. But guess who the flunky who goes to talk to Congressional Democrats is. The chief of staff. To a great extent, they reflect the President’s analysis of what is going on in Congress. They are chiefs of staff precisely because they are big corporate whores. Who better to find out what someone is really thinking than their regular whore?
It wasn’t just a problem in the Senate. Remember the stupid Stupak amendment. That was the extorted price for a lot of House Democrats who represented strong conservative Catholic constituencies. The Bishops play politics too.
I spoke with Olympia Snowe immediately following what she described as a “long, very difficult meeting” with Max Baucus. She had proposed a complicated trigger mechanism to try and keep the public option in the Senate Finance Committee’s version of the bill. It was definitely Max Baucus who nixed it.
Thanks for this information.
You figure that Budget and Finance chairs are the folks who dictate stuff. I wasn’t clear which of them did because Conrad was always talking about “we don’t have the votes”, meaning he was working against it.
Yes, Conrad was working against it but Baucus was absolutely opposed. And Snowe is tremendously influential on Senate Finance even though she is the ranking member. If she is supportive of a measure she will really work the committee members to gain their support.
She is influential because she is the ranking member. On her side of the aisle, she doesn’t have a lot to work with.
Sorry I meant to write even though she isn’t the ranking member.
Well, then, that is something.
Could you elaborate on why you think Dorgan retired?
oh, I see. The buck doesn’t stop with the president. it stops with max baucus.
gotcha.
That is an interesting story, Brandon. Let me tell you a better one.
It’s about the President who insured 10% of the country, radically reformed the non-employer insurance market, curbed the insurance industry’s worst consumer practices, and covertly redistributed billions of dollars from the wealthy to the underserved and unhealthy poor in furtherance of a fairer and better society.
Yep, not a bad story at all.
wow, a WHOLE TEN PERCENT.
where medicare for all would have COVERED everyone.
but i digress: all I’m saying is people have seen where their perceptions get them, and they aren’t playing anymore. there’s no public trust, and why should there be?
this is just a stupid petulant comment.
We’re talking about a situation where Lieberman reversed his support for expanding Medicare eligibility just because he finds Anthony Weiner annoying and then started calling for an increase of the eligibility age. We’re talking about Blanche Lincoln saying she supported the public option before reversing herself when it came to her committee. We’re talking about trying to convince Ben Nelson to screw the private insurance industry.
And Medicare-for-all? That wouldn’t have gotten through any committee in either house.
And then you pooh-pooh the massive transfer of wealth, not to mention the cost savings, of the bill?
my point, which has been utterly missed by you and almost everyone else here, is about your subject: the kabuki.
You said, “Given that, the whole exercise was about political perceptions. I don’t understand why this isn’t better understood.”
The reason why it’s not better understood is that over that last few years there were a whole bunch of political perceptions, only one of which you and your readers seized on. But many of those perceptions, most of which were expressly promoted by your hero, turned out to have been false.
People have been chumped: they expected change and got more 3rd way triangulation bullshit. And now you wonder why people don’t “get” silly washington games.
And yes, booman, I DO laugh at the president’s “insurance reforms”. It’s a joke. But then, I’ve actually experienced REAL socialized medicine, so maybe my standards are a little higher than yours.
But the real point is that no one’s interested in kabuki anymore. Our lives suck. We need something tangible. And all of these deals, I will remind you again, SUCK.
It’s people like you that have me pulling out my hair. The Republicans are about to blow up our economy to spite a Black President they view as an illegitimate usurper and all you want to do is ignore the calamity and whine about the loss of the public option. Really? Seriously? The Public Option? WAKE UP!!!!!!!!
The most important thing to Protest People is their self-image as Protest People.
What you, and others like you, don’t realize is that the President should have known 2 1/2 years ago he was dealing with economic terrorists. We’ve heard how he takes Miss McConnell & Orange Julius at their word. Why? Is he going to go on TV tonight and tell the American people that the GOP raised the debt ceiling 9 times under Dubya? Is he going to tell us that he’s basically accepted Orange Julius’ offer from two weeks ago, but even that is not unacceptable to the Weeper of the House? When is he going to figure out that politics is war by another name?
he probably did realize that, we certainly did – it’s the press and a large % of the citizenry that did not, and him saying so wasn’t going to make it sink in.
So it’s the president’s fault that the American people voted in these crazy people he has no choice but to deal with? The solution is grandstanding for progressive values with more aplomb even though the terrorists are threatening Depression? THEY DON’T WANT A DEAL, DAMMIT. He has to get people to see that because the corporate media has abdicated all responsibility to tell this story with any objectivity. He had only one option: negotiate in good faith knowing full well that they would not. We’re going over a cliff and he is now going to explain it to the American people in a way that cannot be ignored. Hopefully it will avert disaster by causing an epic firestorm. However, I seriously doubt anything will save us now. Gawd Help us.
Good point. When events are at the point of highest drama because “no drama Obama” drives the Republicans nuts, that when people who ordinary wouldn’t tune in to see whether we are getting the promised healthcare reform (or death panels;-) or whether we are going to let the GOP shoot the economy. And if they do anyway, what the President’s response is going to be.
It’s another Wake Up moment live on the TV.
I wrote a diary yesterday I’d like to get your feedback on. It’s been recommended. Thanks.
Is he going to go on TV tonight and tell the American people that the GOP raised the debt ceiling 9 times under Dubya? Is he going to tell us that he’s basically accepted Orange Julius’ offer from two weeks ago, but even that is not unacceptable to the Weeper of the House?
I’d like to note that he did exactly that last Tuesday, on national television, and you’re still here mouthing the same line.
Is he going to go on TV tonight and tell the American people that the GOP raised the debt ceiling 9 times under Dubya?
Well yeah. He did. I just saw him say that (he also threw in the same number for Reagan, just for good measure).
hi SB,
been missing you
rikyrah,
I’ve definitely missed you as well. Check me out sometime.
it turned out that he’d made a secret deal with the hospitals and insurance companies, assuring them that perceptions to the contrary, there would NEVER be a public option.
This is bullshit. This is the worse possible reading – so tendentious a reading as to amount to a lie – of what has come out about the process.
But it’s very illustrative of the problem people like you have with your understanding of the Obama presidency: you gin up the worst possible spin you can imagine (or find on the internet) to explain every development, and then you use the long list of things-you-think-you-know to justify putting the worse possible spin on each subsequent development.
But even putting that aside, your argument is sort of a “I was right to be wrong, because I was wrong for the right reasons” argument you’re making, like the Iraq War supporters in 2006.
Well, just like the Iraq War, there are a whole lot of us who were able to figure it out when you couldn’t. Giving me a bunch of excuses about why you were right to be wrong doesn’t cut it when plenty of us managed not to fall into your hole.
This is bullshit. This is the worse possible reading – so tendentious a reading as to amount to a lie – of what has come out about the process.
It’s the truth, but then the truth hurts.
It is a bullshit lie. If the Senate was ready to give him a public option why would he give it away? Is there any logic left on the left? And if he had given it away why were all those Senators signing that pledge to include a public option?
Just because you’re annoying doesn’t make what you say true.
Nice “all men are John” fallacy, btw. Because your line of bullshit “hurts,” that must mean it’s the truth.
There’s a difference between “selling out the public option” and “he just didn’t want it and had no desire for one in the first place.”
Same results, but the latter questions his motives. If I were in the same position, I would have made the same deal. I’m not sure if I would have made the Pharma deal, as the votes were there for that.
In any case, this is where I get annoyed with commenters at FDL and TalkLeft and shit. Even if I agree with some portion of the analysis, it’s ruined by “Obama is evil” rather than looking at the status on the ground or mistakes he may have made.
for it to be taken off the table and it never was because it couldn’t even get 50 votes in the Senate. All of the big 3 candidates knew that which is why Clinton, Obama, nor Edwards ever proposed it in their platforms.
I am in utter and total agreement with you here.
Duh.
It isn’t better…more widely…understood because that is not the story that the media have been presenting.
Not enough drama.
Low ratings.
Instead? Another “Hottest thing ever!!!” routine.
Who’s making money now?
The media are making money.
Whenever things start to go wrong, the media get right.
Snow? Heat? Sickness? Massacres? Snippy DC pols almost all protecting their own asses by lying like the thieves they are?
All grist for the media mill.
The only problem is…eventually that act is going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This time?
I’m betting not.
This time a day or two or three from now?
Until the next media boondoggle.
Watch.
S.
So how do we peanuts do some culture-jamming of that self-fulfilling prophecy?
Yeah. Yeah. Culture strike.
Then what?
Shark Attacks! Get out of the water!
Missing blonde girl! Don’t let your kids out of your sight!
Remember August is coming. Washington shuts down for August. They’ll have to go and find some other crazy distractions to entertain us with and call news.
I remember very well, Gary Condit, Gary Condit, Gary Condit, shark, shark, shark
Gary Condit, Gary Condit, Gary Condit, shark, shark, shark
…Oh shit.
Interesting that at the onset of the problems of the House of Murdoch Fox some media was spending lots of time trying to gin up outrage about that murder mother who got acquitted or something – can’t remember her name – but someone the populace seems to have more important things on their minds right now.
Then more culture strike.
Along with newstrike and mediastrike. Until you’re clean and sober again.
Then you tell all of your friends. All of your more than likely middle class and above, well educated, media-targeted friends. You know? The ones who still have some money to spend?
Then they tell their friends.
Then the media begin to feel the heat.
Then…???
Then things begin to change.
Until then? Nothing changes.
Until you…we, as in us, as in all of us…begin to realize how media-addicted and media led-by-the-nose we really are, nothing but the same game will run and re-run until some kind of total breakdown occurs.
I do not want to see that breakdown happen. It will be a very ugly time.
Is there a peaceful way to stop his hypnomedia-run farce from continuing?
I think that there is.
Apparently…unless I misread your snark…you do not.
So let me ask you a few questions.
When did you first begin to consume media?
How many times in your conscious life…from say about 3 or 4 years old until today…have you watched and been moved by media.
Moved emotionally. Moved to wish you were “like” somebody; moved to want to “have” something or some way of living that had recently (and usually repeatedly) been presented to you?
How many times has the media been a part of what convinced you of the rightness of some person or movement? How many times have you found out later that your hero…say JFK or Clinton or Obama…was not at all as he was presented? How many tmes have you been “surprised” to learn that the good guys aren’t really very good at all and some of the “bad” guys…say Castro or Ho Chi Minh…are quite honorable people. How many times have you been told that a snowstorm or heavy rain is coming, believed it, later found out that it was not true and yet went right back to the weather people for another dose of fiction?
How many times, Tarheel? Honestly, from your childhood on. Those childish beliefs about the good-for-you sugar cereals and McDonalds burgers prepare you to believe what you are told…advertised…into believing. It is a rare human being who completely outgrows his or her socio-cultural conditioning. The rare Irish Roman Catholic who truly looks at non-Catholics without prejudice, the rare white southerner who came up within a generation of two either way of the civil rights movement and truly believes that skin color has no reference to character, intelligence or morality, the rare media-addict who totally kicks his or her addiction to the glorious suspension of disbelief that clicks on just as soon as the big TV eye begins its nightly stare.
Are you totally free of media conditioning?
Are you sure?
Then why the fuck do you still watch it? Why throw snark at the suggestion that the media is the single most pervasive evil influence extant in this culture? You are smart enough to know that it is all a monstrous pack of lies. And yet you prefer to enter into the talky-talk-talk loop of “This guys right and this other guy’s wrong.”
That are all wrong, Tarheel.
If the media pay them any serious positive attention, then they have already sold their soul to the Tweet devil.
Get used to it.
And walk the fuck away.
Or not.
Your choice.
The so-called “third” choice?
Every junkie I have ever know who didn’t kick…cold turkey…and stay kicked has run that game.
Then I go to their funeral.
Wake the fuck up.
AG
Yes, I’ve carped about the president’s approach to the debt ceiling (and many other things).
The Reid plan (no cuts to Medicare or Soc. Sec.), is acceptable to me as long as Obama allows the Bush tax cuts to expire at the first opportunity (when will that be?).
If this happens, the I’m all for 11th Dimensional Chess. If anything else happens, prepare for more carping.
So where do we stand? IF the Reid plan goes throught, does its success depend on Obama’s address being so powerful that the House agrees to pass it? Or does it have to be a game of chicken where the market drops 1500 points and THEN they agree to pass it? Or is it impossible for it to pass?
I don’t know what crooked loopholes are in Reid’s plan and I expect there are plenty, but from a strictly POLITICAL point of view, the democrats’ best and only chance in 2012 is to be 100% pure on protecting social security and medicare and jam it down the republicans’ throats relentlessly. “Vote Republican and lose your Social Security and Medicare” … and then show the debt debate’s endless clips of Republicans bashing the two programs. If that isn’t the best campaign strategy of all time, I don’t know what is.
For the vast majority of Americans, life is better with progressive democrats in power. That much is absolutely true. A relative of a friend of mine is a diehard Limbaugh freak who lived (until recently) in a gated community in the middle of nowhere to keep his kids from being exposed to __ (fill in the race, sexual preference, etc.). HE LOST HIS HOUSE on a predatory loan. He’s getting killed on medical bills. On and on! But he STILL doesn’t get it. They’re screwing him to DEATH and he doesn’t get it.
They can’t keep fooling people like this forever – sooner or later the white trash are going to be forced to vote in their own economic self-interest and if the dems could just get their heads around this, defend SS and Medicaree and tax increases for the ultra rich, and STAY ON MESSAGE, this could be the election where the dam finally breaks.
Isn’t your first paragraph a total contradiction to your second? They have been fooling increasing numbers of people like this forever, with full complicity by a near-majority of Dems.
Yes – they’ve been fooling increasing numbers of people like this forever, with full complicity by a near-majority of Dems. Definitely. But eventually the economic pain will force the issue. They won’t keep voting Republican when they’re starving to death. The question is how close to that it has to get before they see they’ve been snookered.
That would have been last December.
The FAA is closed down and has been since Friday midnight. The taxes that they collect are not being collected and so, it is costing us money.
One thing that needs to be pointed out is that the markets are in a panic. That has a lot to do with Obama’s tone and his willingness to keep negotiating with the Republicans.
If Bush were president, I would think the markets would be very uneasy.
It is so easy to stand on the sidelines and say what Obama should do. He is president of the entire country not just those who call themselves his base.
This isn’t a game for him. He is on the front line. Obama has handled this so well without scaring people.
I think you meant to say “the markets are NOT in a panic”.
I completely agree with your point, especially that the markets are not panicking because they think Obama can handle this.
Thank you WaterGirl. I appreciate it.
Interesting point that the relative calm in the markets reflects confidence in Obama. If true, it implies that the chief funders of the GOP crazies know deep down where their real interests as a group lie. And yet they keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Doesn’t say much for the economic “leaders” of this country, does it?
You have that one correct. For the most part, if the cards were not stacked in their favor and if the worker bees didn’t have a strong work ethic in spite of all the patronage crap and office politics, the CEOs of US corporations would not make a profit. Most do not know the real financial condition of their corporations or how accurate the monthly reports they read actually are. Or the games that second and third line managers are playing in order to look good.
Right now, thanks to Ayn Rand, we have the stupidest elite in the world.
I had the same thought, and it made me wonder if perhaps it will be Obama who gets donations from big business this time around.
It already is. And from Wall Street.
Won’t that get some folks all riled up?
Of course, at some point he’s going to have to get them to sign on to his populist message.
This may not be just about him. He may be trying to show our incredibly stupid elites (who really decide the elections with their checkbooks) that the sane, disciplined party deserves to have both houses of Congress back. Even if the elites don’t give money to Democrats, they can punish the Republicans by withholding their contributions and the Republicans will lose enough seats.
Just last week, McConnell, Boehner and Cantor started hearing from die-hard republican elites who usually give so much that they have their ears to say that they’re okay with having their taxes raised if the republicans would back off of that precipice they’re about to fall off of. Either they didn’t listen, or they have no control of the party. Either case should be punished.
They have no control of the party. 2010 changed everything.
Do you forget 2008 so quick? He got tons of money from Wall Street last time.
I think Boehner was misunderestimated that he could corral his caucus into accepting a compromise that gave them most of what they wanted. I think the President actually thought there was a grand bargain to be made. That is how he has approached the republicans in every negotiation.
You see, I don;t doubt Obama’s sincerity in thinking that Boehner, once he had power and actually had to lead the House, would bargain with him as the President. I also believe Boehner did bargain and bargained hard. He got quite a bit more than I thought was reasonable, but apparently he never got enough to satisfy his colleagues. Even today, Boehner was still trying to put out a proposal that was tea party friendly and included practically everything they had already approved in their Cut, Cap and Balance bill as a opposition proposal to the Reid plan and he still couldn’t get them to accept it:
We will default or the government will shut down in order to pay interest on the debt that comes due. That is almost a certainty now. I do not believe Boehner thought it would come to this point, nor do I think Obama did either. They may not like each other but neither one is crazy and I don’t believe either wanted this end result to the debt ceiling negotiations. But now Boehner is screwed by his own caucus and we are screwed as a country. Obama may come out of this with the “political” laurels (though even that isn’t a certainty) but the country will be harmed. Tomorrow the stock market drops precipitously, the interest rates in T Bills go up, and economic chaos begins.
It’s the debt limit itself that the Tea Party cannot compromise on; that’s their pledge. (Now the politics driving not compromising is a different matter.)
Which means that Boehner starts 45 votes shy of being able to force something through only with Republican votes and all the Tea Party folks sitting out.
And apparently, as he adds sweeteners to attract Democratic votes he loses more Republican votes for every Democratic vote he could pick up. So he is stuck representing the Tea Party.
The process did get out of control.
Nope, the economic chaos will not begin tomorrow unless the markets distrust Obama’s ability to handle any eventuality. The relative calm today is encouraging.
And by precipitously, you mean there would be at least a 2000 point drop in the Dow. In other indexes a 15%-20% drop. Today’s drop was less than 100 points on a 12000+ Dow.
I guess we’ll see.
Today there wans’t going to be a drop because no one knew what each side’s plan going forward would be.
is it for the Government to default?
Nobody’s.
There will be a debt ceiling bill, and it will pass by end of the week.
I don’t think the stock market is going to collapse until the government shuts down.
A government shutdown would be in October unless Republicans pass all the appropriation bills.
It might be better to have this fight now with seemingly higher stakes (but over a phony metric) than in October, just to allow two months for the political environment to change. In whatever way it will.
It’s in the interest of Tea Party Republicans who are so parochial that they don’t know what default means and who want so very much to defeat that damned … Haven’t you gotten it yet. It’s rage. It’s don’t tread on me. A lot of those folks have a stake in sabotaging the federal government. For very irrational reasons.
Federal employees can’t work if they are not being paid. If default occurs, the shutdown starts now.
Actually, during the Clinton/Gingrich shutdown, essential government employees had to work without pay until it was over. They were then paid back with interest.
Its not well understood because people don’t want to understand it. They can sort of grasp that the Republicans are being jerks, but they have an instinctive need to somehow make what’s happening Obama’s fault. To even lay the majority of the blame on Republicans would somehow absolve Obama of all the blame on this in their own head, and they don’t want to go there.
Obama should have found a way because Obama should have found a way and he’s a caver and a sellout and a republican in disguise. Bad Obama. Public option!
I bet the leaders in the Republican Party are sweating. This hasn’t gone at all the way they thought it would. Their problem is within their own party and they can’t seem to control it.
It is clearly seen outside of the US that the Republicans aren’t trying to solve anything.
If Obama was never going to get anything, and knew he was never going to get anything, what end-game do you play for?
In policy terms you play for minimum damage to the country. But what country? The “job producers”? The “people”? Something else? The question is, what country do you try to protect? Is it clear from his previous words and actions what goal his endgame will be directed to winning? The dreary public hallucinating over “one nation” and “don’t look back” makes for a very turbid outlook.
In political terms, if you’re getting nothing, what’s your optimum outcome? Is it realistic to think people will turn to you because you look “reasonable” even though you lost? Or will you just be seen as a weak loser? Would the odds of gaining something have been better if you’d played a populist game “for the people” and against the malefactors of great wealth? Or if you’d stood firm from the start that the debt ceiling would not be held hostage to ideological blackmail, and that budget decisions are far too complex and important to become side issues or ideological hostages?
I don’t see where the case is made that the plan hypothesized here was optimal. How would a strong stand that got nothing, as opposed to endless attempts to negotiate that got nothing, have highlighted even more his ability to move the Republicans? Which would be seen as the more admirable loss? I don’t see where the “negotiator” one is the default winner. Our culture tends to admire the fighter more than the negotiator, so the comparative political risk isn’t clear. If the other side are “economic terrorists”, is a warrior or a collaborator going to be more approved — Vichy or the resistance? It seems like a big, difficult step to campaign against “economic terrorists” when you’ve offered to accept most of their demands — whether you “really meant it” or not.
Whether Obama’s game gives him any political points depends on whether he’s perceived as winning any policy points. I guess/hope we’ll see tonight how that works out.
You asked;
Here’s my two cents: I believe the answer is “the people”. I can’t recall what speech it was, but there was one line that I found particularly telling. He said that lobbyists and people who are connected have direct access to politicians, and “you get to write a letter”.
To me, that’s someone who gets it. He understands the power differential and he thinks it’s wrong. He will do everything he can to protect the people who need help the most.
To suspect you are going to get nothing and to know you are going to get nothing are two different things.
If the strategy is as it appears, Obama engaged in a negotiating strategy of discovery of the Republicans’ bottom line. And he now is getting close to proof, demonstrable proof that can be argued credibly to a large audience either tonight or on August 2 that the bottom line for the Republicans was two things: have the Democrats cut Social Security and Medicare; keep the debt ceiling alive totally throughout the 2012 election season to distract from Ryan’s disastrous budget to privatize Medicare.
We are nearing the end of that collective discovery. It’s a pretty straight-forward and honest negotiating procedure in which you keep adding stuff to the list to see how much the other party wants. Without actually committing to that list unless you get your list in return.
So now the issue is clear for all to see: it is about Republicans destroying an Obama presidency for partisan political gain. Not about spending. Not about no new taxes. Not about deficits. Not about debt. And as most progressives have been yammering about for two years, the strategy was to have Obama negotiate a bipartisan deal that required him to commit electoral suicide.
If the public finally grasps that in large numbers and in spite of the media spin, it will have been an optimal strategy.
“And as most progressives have been yammering about for two years, the strategy was to have Obama negotiate a bipartisan deal that required him to commit electoral suicide.” Is there a typo in here somewhere? I can’t follow the thinking.
I guess the real core of the intramural argument is whether one thinks “demonstrable proof that can be argued credibly to a large audience” WILL be argued, and not just CAN be argued. That’s where the record is not entirely inspiriting.
Um “highlighted his INability…”
“True progressives” UNDERSTAND it just fine. They simply against Obama, no matter what. Firebagger = teabagger.
Yeah Obama is going to speak and then Boehner. It’s like Clinton and Gingrich all over again. How did this become a fucking repeat of the 90’s all over again. Thanks a lot 2010 voters.
I really don’t understand your take on this Booman. How is this whole fiasco a win for the president? Because the way I see it, there are 4 things that can happen.
1.) Congress will end up having an unconditional vote to raise the debt limit. This is the best possible outcome and at best it’s a wash. After all this nonsense, Obama will be exactly where every other president has been. Except that he’s now on record offering to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Yay Team Obama! Is that it? Is that was those of us who were carping about Obama’s negotiating style have been missing?
2.) Congress will raise the debt limit for 6 months, during which we get to play this game all over again. Now we get dragged through this whole morass again. In which Obama can offer even more cuts to social programs.
Yay Team Obama.
3.) Congress will raise the debt limit, after accepting one of the many grand bargains that have been put on the table. Republicans get everything they’ve asked for, in return for a vote that’s happened unconditionally 89 times in the past.
I’m starting to miss the 11 dimensional chess victory, now.
4.) Congress won’t raise the debt limit and the economy will take a serious hit. The last is a disaster, whose only mitigating effect might be that Republicans get more of the blame. Obama can get up on TV and explain to grandma that he was willing to cut her SS check, but Boehner said no.
Yay Team Obama?
Nobody in America gives a damn about perceptions. They want the economy back on track. Obama won’t get any credit for being a stalwart captain of a sinking ship.
It’s too late to get a bill through both houses of Congress before August 2nd. At that point they start furloughing government workers. How many I have no idea, but my guess is everyone that doesn’t involve law enforcement or National Security or related to disaster relief/prevention. National Parks and Forests would be closed. Perhaps the entire judicial system except for criminal cases would be put on hold. Military training would likely be curtailed except for forces to be deployed soon to Afghanistan or Iraq.
Would social security checks get sent out? Probably, for a while. But the hit to the economy (rising interest rates, falling stock markets, devaluation of the dollar are all possibilities). Oil prices as denominated in dollars would likely rise – how much I can’t tell yet. The longer the debt ceiling crisis goes on the worse the effects.
Yah think you’ve hit on the Tea Party strategy?
All of those dire consequences depend on a lot of actions that the President will have total short-term control over.
Having made this crisis, the fact that the administration popped it in August one way or the other has implications for the real crisis–the FY2012 budget. If that’s not done, it’s total shutdown from Kabul to Kansas City. The IRS will not be able to collect the revenue that will be transmitted to their computers.
Do you think that the politics around the budget might change in October?
No. It takes about 30 minutes to vote on a debt limit increase.
Wrong.
The Senate operates by unanimous consent on every procedural movement. If Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), for example, does not consent to move to consideration of a bill, then Reid has to wait a couple of days and hold a vote where 60 senators agree to consider the bill. Then if he wants to end debate, the same thing again. Then if he wants to vote on the bill, the same thing again. If there are amendments, the same thing. If the bill in the House is different by one letter, then they need to go to a conference committee, which enables about three more blocking moves.
If members of Congress want something done, it can be done quickly. My guess is that the leadership wants things done.
But if you’re right and enough members are determined to blow things up, I still don’t see what advantage Obama gained by caving to virtually every demand the Republicans made. It’s one thing to lose a battle when you’re making a stand for something. Defending the middle class against the fortunes of the Koch brothers would be a pretty powerful political position. Especially if people see that the Republicans are willing to shut the country down rather than raise taxes on the Koch brothers.
But to have given up ground on virtually every issue and still be unable to get a simple vote on the debt ceiling? That paints Obama as weak and pathetic.
I am right (pdf):
The Republicans are deliberately exposing the weakness of the president in our constitutional system. There is no avoiding looking weak. The question is, will he look unreasonable or unwilling to get serious about our debt, as well?
Nobody is arguing that members of Congress can’t throw a monkey wrench in the works if they want to. But they can also get a vote done quickly if they want to do that.
A president doesn’t look weak simply because he doesn’t hold all the cards. He looks weak if he doesn’t know how to manage the political situation. Being reasonable doesn’t mean that Obama has to give in to every demand of the Republicans. We wouldn’t even be in this situation now except that Boehner and company believed that the president would cave to their demands in the end. So far their “Just Say No” strategy has worked fabulously. They’re finding out exactly how much he’s willing to pay for a deal. $4 trillion dollars, cuts to social programs and no real tax increases: that’s not to shabby from their perspective.
And you still haven’t shown me that anyone outside the Washington Post building considers putting Social Security on the table to be a reasonable concession on the president’s part. He won’t be rewarded for that by the voters.
First of all, the idea that the Democrats were going to get a ‘win’ out of losing the midterms and the House and six senate seats is just crazy.
It’s not a win, no matter what happens.
Secondly, the Tea Party were able to force Boehner to make a choice between forcing a default or losing his gavel.
Thirdly, that means Obama had to convince Boehner to be a man or he’d face a choice between total capitulation and default.
So, under those circumstances, the only option is to come out of it stronger politically and with everyone hating the Republicans.
I don’t see what the midterms have to do with this. And I still don’t understand why you think the president is coming out stronger politically. You either believe that Boehner was never going to agree to any deal, because the Tea Party wouldn’t allow it, or that he was always going to sign a deal in the end, due to pressure from Wall Street.
In either case, Obama should never have put Medicare and Social Security on the table. Given impossible odds, he should have offered a compromise based on progressive positions – that the deficit should be closed by a 50-50 combination of tax cuts and spending cuts – and that Social Security and Medicare, which have not contributed to the deficit, wouldn’t be part of the deal. That would have established the Democrats and Obama as the protectors of popular programs in contrast to Republicans as defenders of tax cuts for the wealthy.
If he expected Boehner to cave in the end, he should have simply said, “Stop holding the economy hostage” and left it at that.
Those were the politically smart positions for Obama to have taken. He didn’t. I’m still trying to puzzle out why you think he looks good to anyone outside the beltway media right now.
The midterms have everything to do with this, because they created a situation where we could not raise the debt ceiling.
This is where you’re confused. This isn’t a matter of Obama asking for too little and then moving to the right. This is a matter of a political situation created last November leading inexorably and predictably to one of two outcomes. One, Boehner holds enough of his caucus for a deal the congressional democrats can support, or two, he doesn’t. He sides for sanity or he sides for survival. He failed.
For the president, he originally wanted a clean bill. But a clean bill was never a possibility. He tried to create a sweet spot for Boehner but then Cantor blew the whole thing up.
Once he realized that we were headed straight for the catastrophic situation we’re now in, the president designed his Grand Bargain. There was never any possibility that the Republicans would accept it, but if a miracle occurred and they did, he’d be able to solve a number of problems and reset several things in his favor. He could get an extension of the payroll holiday and more unemployment insurance. He could backload the cuts. He could get the debt and deficit off the table and take credit for brokering a big deal, etc.
Much of that was desirable, especially compared to where we are now. But the main thing is that he won the P.R. battle over who’s responsible for where we are now and what’s about to happen to people’s pocketbooks.
See this is where we disagree. Obama gets no political advantage from a Grand Bargain that goes after social programs, particularly if he expects it will be rejected. Democrats were set to run as the defenders of Social Security and Medicare against Republicans who want to kill those programs to preserve tax cuts for the rich. Obama has stepped on that message.
It remains to be seen who has won the P.R. battle at this point. The best case scenario is that the debt limit gets raised and everyone moves on to the next political battle. The worst case scenario is that the economy takes a hit and Obama gets to preside over a double-dip recession.
And the debt and deficit will never be off the table, no matter how many Grand Bargains the president makes.
was a deal to be made, and truth is they were close to one. Only $400 Billion in revenue was enough to kill the “grand bargain” deal. I don’t think it is right to say that this ending was inevitable. What was unexpected, I think, was the reaction of the Democratic Caucus, which had a fit when they heard about the proposed deal.
In the end, I think Obama thought this was a way to get most of the Catfood Commision recomendations adopted.
The political theory that he was operating under was that a big deal would show government could be made to “work”, and he would see significant benefit out of being the one who brokered the big deal. In addition, I think he thought that the cuts he offered would essentially kill the GOP’s ability to argue for smaller government, as any additional cuts would be so draconian as to be politically disasterous. In this sense the grand bargain would effectively drive the GOP even further right in the upcoming elections.
All of this is supposition on my part. I HATE the deal that was proposed, but I think Obama believed in it, and thought he could get it done.
Good points about the long game. And how it might enable change later.
The big question about the long game is whether, after all the offers to collaborate with the enemy, he can muster up enough credibility with the traditional Dems to win an endgame or get the chance to enable change later. I’d like to think this was all a magnificent high-risk game for the long-term win, but don’t have the faith it would take to really expect that to be the outcome. Hope like hell to be wrong, though.
One doesn’t know who’s won the poker game until the end of the night.
The rope-a-dope strategy depends landing the knockout punch.
The four corners offense strategy depends on accurately landing that buzzer-beater shot.
Regardless of how well-played, the outcome is always uncertain until the end.
And we are not at the end yet. So we can’t judge whether it worked or not.
The speech tonight just continued running the clock and demanding that Republicans cave on taxes.
noise from his left amonng the rank and file. It’s amazing, but it’s true.
I don’t. He’s not an idiot. I think he might have thought a deal was possible at one point in time, but by the time he went for the Big Bargain and introduced entitlements, he knew they couldn’t deliver their caucus.
which is a whopping 4 days ago, that he was going to get a deal done.
The argument is now going to morph into a debate over whether a short term debt ceiling bill is enough. The consumer confidence numbers suggest the drama over this has hurt the real economy, and as a result the Obama people are going to try like hell to avoid another debt ceiling vote before the election.
Whether they are successful I couldn’t say. If the Rpugs are smart they could pass a debt ceiling bill with the cuts Obama already agreed to.
They Don’t want a deal. Period. They want a default to blame on Obama.
what?
4 days ago?
You have seen Peanuts, right?
The only difference here is that Obama is witting about the football.
rumor tonight suggesting anything short of 3 Trillion will result in a downgrade. If true is changes the game here significantly….
Kabuki? More like bukkake. Yeah, I’ve been drinking.
yesterday for a change of pace. One of the couples, among the first married, are friends of mine. I’ve spent more time enjoying these photos than writing cranky comments on this thread – which, my comments aside, is a really good discussion!
http://media.talkingpointsmemo.com/slideshow/gay-couples-line-up-to-get-married-in-new-york?ref=fpb
Simplified reason why more people don’t understand:
We’re mired in chest-thumping, dick-swinging mode.
Obama don’t play that.
And all those who rely on chest-thumping and dick-swinging are needing to thump their chests harder and swing their dicks bigger in order to avoid irrelevance.
Have it on good authority by Howard Fineman on Lawrence O, if POTUS uses speech to “go after Tea Party”, then he makes himself seem more “partisan” (even though the polls show that majority support this approach) but if he does too much “the only adult in the room”, then he alienates the base.
The stage if fuckin’ set, but bully pulpit and all that!
He is definitely going after the Teashits.
America might have voted for a divided government, but they did not vote for a dysfunctional one.
More of THIS Obama, please.
Speech-making has always been his strength. Kept this one short, made all the important points, explained them at the right level.
The difference this time was the degree to which he pointed fingers at the culprits, although he didn’t mention them by name – the Tea Baggers. He’s apparently attempting to split the GOP along Tea Bag/not Tea Bag lines. Interesting gambit. Although that’s a classic tactic to use against Democrats I can’t imagine it working against Republicans — but we’ll see.
For all his talk about people being upset with Washington, though, the undertone of his speech was that most of those in the halls of power agreed on the right thing to do but that a few Tea Baggers were preventing them from doing it. That is, the problem with Washington isn’t really the Washington elite — they are behaving responsibly — it’s the new guys on the block. I doubt that was intended as the message, but I think that is something that came through because he personally believes it.
Well, in the end he may succeed in setting the Tea Party up to be the fall guys if the debt limit isn’t raised in time. And of course, that is entirely accurate, but his role is in part to make sure that is the perception.
He’s also set in stone that they won’t accept a short term fix. Given GOP behavior patterns, I almost expect them to come up with a short-term no-strings-attached bill to raise the debt ceiling a small amount just to force him to walk that back.
On the other hand, he’s also established that when all the dust clears — either before or after a debt default – that the grand bargain will screw future retirees and, unless the cuts are predominantly long-term accounting tricks, have the effect of a large negative demand shock on a very weak economy. Nothing new, of course, but still sad.
I thought there was a plea in Obama’s speech for these guys to think about how they will be remembered in the history books.
As in… We don’t remember the partisan people who won’t compromise – the folks who compromise and get things done are the ones we remember.